About Poultry

The Poultry Business in India is an old & traditional practice and this food industry is one of the important contributors to the economy of rural and semi-urban India. As per the reports, the Indian poultry was estimated at around Rs. 49,000 crores in 2011 end, and is likely to cross Rs. 1.32 lakh crore mark by 2015. Since the last decade or so the poultry industry has been estimated to have witnessed a steady growth of around 11% – 12% each year, which is expected to increase to around 15% to 20% in the coming years. The reports also envisage a strong growth for the egg and poultry meat industry of India, both in urban and rural India, in the next two decades. Further, India is the fifth largest producer of eggs and ninth largest producer of poultry meat amongst all the countries. The poultry industry of India produced over 50 billions of eggs and around 3 million tons of poultry meat in the financial year 2011. The market research report of the poultry business in India found that egg consumption rate in India has grown at a much faster pace, than the consumption of poultry meat. Moreover, with the continual rise in purchasing power capacity, the rate of consumption is estimated to triple by the end of the year 2020, which is a great sign for the growth of poultry industry.

The average per capita poultry (broiler) meat consumption in India has increased from an estimated 1 kg in the year 2000 to an estimated 3 kg in the year 2012, and expected to keep rising higher per year. The total egg consumption is estimated to touch 106 billion in the year 2020 from 34 billion in year 2000. These estimates speak that there has been and is going to be a tremendous growth in the Poultry industry. Presently, the Poultry Business in India produces around 2.86 million tons of eggs (around 55 to 60 billion eggs in numbers) and an estimated 3.2 million tonnes of poultry meat. The Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu cumulatively produce around 50% of the India’s egg production while the eastern and central parts of India account for around 25% of egg production.

The structure of India’s poultry industry is varied and small-scale producers account for the bulk of production while large-scale producers accounts for a growing share of output in some regions. The Poultry Business in India provides employment to an estimated over 2 million people among which around 80 % are directly employed, while the rest 20 % is engaged with its allied areas like in feed, pharmaceuticals, equipment, and other services as required by the poultry industry. Moreover, this sector also involves an additional workforce of around 1.6 million, primarily engaged with in marketing and sales of poultry products. India exports poultry products like table-eggs, meat, live birds, egg powder and frozen yolk to various countries.

Although, the Indian poultry industry has been showing substantial growth due to modern methods of poultry farming but a major section of the industry still suffers from some basic issues, like the following -